LDS dating...and why everyone hates it

So I just spent the last week in the bountiful, the land of plenty, even called God's country in some quarters...Provo, Utah. In God's country, the wind does not beat you down; it simply massages the soul. I love Provo...and I miss it deeply. Goodness is in the air you breathe. But God's country has a vulnerable underbelly--dating...

Have you noticed, my fellow LDSers, that dating is almost never the subject of a testimony on fast Sunday? "I know that dating is a true principle...and if we abide by it, we shall find happiness in this life..." Unfortunately, we would laugh whoever said this to scorn faster than you can say DTR. The great irony? While dating is glossed over as a custom, marriage emphasized and re-emphasized as the key stone of eternity, world without end. Dating is laughable; marriage is a key to the eternities. Out here in Kentucky, any dating talk is accompanied by at least three groans and two snickers.

Why do we laugh about--and don't testify of--dating? Because laughing is easier than crying. The reason we don't testify of dating is simple: it is the hardest doctrine there is. Seer stones, Adam-God, blood atonement...all sugary glaze when compared to this reality: "you may never find a suitable spouse in this life." Thank heavens that a testimony of dating is not required for full fellowship; if it were, our religion would become a holding vessel for the dating elites en route to a life of marital bliss--and we all know who they are (bless their hearts). You know, those with the arresting smile ("good teeth," as some of our dear sisters describe it), the lively spirit, the future attorneys, and would-be Mitt Romneys. Meanwhile, the rest of the dating proletariat would toil away...oh sorry, I forgot...this is a no-Marxism zone. But seriously folks, we can thank our lucky stars that the Lord has not asked for dating to be on the temple recommend question list..."Do you have faith in and a testimony of dating as a means to attain exaltation?" The ramifications would be profound: the Provo temple would shut down. Arranged marriage would become remarkably en vogue, if only to help the poor sons/daughters of the faith to escape from their sinful, non-dating ways.

It's true...we're not for want of counsel concerning dating. Hardly a CES fireside goes by without it. But their expectations are remarkably different from other commandments...tithing, chastity, even faith and repentance--all of these are painted in eternal and unchanging terms. And dating? Only weeks ago, Elder Earl C. Tingey even intimated that losing weight and changing a hairdo would be necessary to date. Such counsel hardly resembles the eloquent rhapsodies one can read in Mosiah 26 or 2 Nephi 9 about the greatness of God or the laws of mercy and justice.

So to those of you in relationships...I salute you. And in your honor, I am going to go read a book about imperialism and feminism in the British empire. Any segue? Nah...segues are for wimps.